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Acid Wash of Levi VI
The Acid Wash of Levi VI was a flood plain found on the far northern shore of the Assiduous Sea (an ironic name given that the man-made ocean lasted only 20 years before boring through the glassy seabed and burning a hole through the crust of Levi VI), and was discovered by accident in 1716 by Harrican Syldanade. Creation of the Assiduous Sea The Assiduous Sea was constructed between 1696 and 1702 by BKE Amalgamated. It was a six million square mile man-made ocean, designed for the express purpose of "harmlessly" absorbing the run-off from the highly toxic process of glaxis smelting. The foundry was to be located within the banana republic of Vigoss, who sold BKE the land needed to construct the ocean and processing plant in exchange for a decrepit fleet of sailing ships that BKE had purchased for 1000 miskva at a yard sale. (Vigoss later covertly launched the old navy upon the Assiduous Sea as a pirate fleet based out of St. John's Bay, wreaking havoc upon the shipping of the bordering nations until the planetary destruction event of 1722.) Excavation of the enormous sea-to-be was an enormous undertaking, spearheaded by BKE's self-proclaimed "destructor of silica," Meri Caneagle. Under her supervision, thirty 60-man labor crews worked under harsh conditions and around-the-clock for six years to prepare the site. In all, 12 Harri-Tons of rock were moved, vaporized, or melted to create the smooth glass sea-floor surface. Caneagle was eventually sued by the families of the tenth labor group, the "J crew," all of whom disappeared, and were later found to have been killed in a terrible blasting accident that Caneagle tried to cover up with claims that they had won a sudden and mandatory vacation to Mossimo XII (located, of course, in the Izer Nebula, preventing all communication). Caneagle was sentenced to 20 years of hard clowning in a Levi VI prison circus. Filling of the ocean was surprisingly fast. It's unknown where BKE acquired the water, but a single night after the completion of the giant basin, it was full. The increase in planetary mass significantly altered the day-night cycle of Levi VI, leading to significant migration of the planetary population in the years to follow. BKE began smelting glaxis immediately, releasing thousands of gallons of toxic effluents every hour into the Assiduous Sea. Discovery and Exploitation of the Acid Wash The indigenous population of Levi VI had been largely undisturbed by extra-planetary visitors before BKE Amalgamated's arrival, but Harrican Syldanade was fascinated by BKE-laborer tales of the locals' constant and treacherous warfare, and began visiting the planet regularly. Some claimed that Syldanade was not merely studying the peoples of Levi VI, but instead selling weapon systems to some tribes, and their direct countermeasures to other tribes. Evidence for this theory is of course impossible to gather given the complete destruction of Levi VI and its people. Syldanade's journals, however, claim that his interactions with the natives were purely scientific in nature. How he came to sire three Levinian offspring is thus also a historical mystery. In 1716, Syldanade (on his eighth visit to Levi VI) was piloting a dirigible in the far northern wastelands. His journals indicate he was attempting to fill in a gap in his maps of the area, a place he called the "uncharted territory at lands' end." His critics claim he was actually attempting to evade a squad of dust wranglers that he had offended with his fastidious manners and cheap booze. Again, any possible evidence of Syldanade's true motivations has been destroyed, though the prior existence of very accurate global maps gathered by satellite data indicate that perhaps Syldanade's tale is somewhat suspect. In any case, it was on this journey that Syldanade happened upon the Acid Wash. It seems that by 1716 the acidity of the Assiduous Sea had reached such a high level that it had burned its way through the containment basin across a small stretch of the northern coastline. At high tide, highly acidic water would flow out across a wide plain, chemically scorching the terrain for miles. When Syldanade's airship rounded the lee side of the nearby mountains, he happened to arrive above the wash just as the tide receded. Curious, he landed his dirigible, and to his amazement the ground was littered with tricesian crystals. Apparently the rocks had been rich in the rare mineral, and the acid had etched away all of the surrounding material. Realizing the vast economic opportunity in front of him, Syldanade spent two days gathering what he could by hand and vowed to return in short order. Return he did, two months later with a veritable army of robot butlers that he had re-programmed to collect crystals. On the second day of scavenging almost half of the robots ran out of gas, powered down in the flood plain, and were dissolved by the toxic sea. Syldanade replaced the engines of the remaining robots with second-hand beta-enriched argon nuclear reactors, which exchanged the danger of powering down with the chance of blowing up. Against all odds, he did not lose another robot until 1722. He attributed the success of his all-BEAN powered army to his "lucky brand of laissez faire entrepreneurship." Working at every available low tide, Syldanade's robotic workforce gathered him a royal fortune in tricesium. It is difficult to estimate the value of his endeavors, as much of it was lost in a series of high-stakes card games. Aftermath In 1722, of course, the Assiduous Sea tore its way through the protective barrier containing it, and burned a hole through the planetary crust. The unlikely geological events that followed are not fully understood, but within one week, Levi VI was was reduced to a barren asteroid field. Almost all life on the planet was lost. Oddly, the only litigation to arise from the planetary destruction was aimed at Harrican Syldanade, who was sued by the Robotic Anti-Disassembly League for his part in the destruction of countless robotic butlers. The suit claimed most of the remainder of Syldanade's short-lived fortune.